How to Pack a Car When Moving: Just Pack More in Your Car

You’re moving to a new home soon and you’ve already made up your mind to transport some of your belongings in your own car.

Now, that seems like a brave decision, especially when that new home is located in another part of the country – many hundreds (or thousands!) of miles away from where you are now. Brave or not, it’s what you’re going to do and there’s no turning back now.

Oftentimes, doing a second car trip will be out-of-the-question impossible so you’re going to have to think of a way to somehow fit all of the things you’re taking with you inside the car.

In fact, packing a car for a cross-country move is anything but child’s play – you’ll need to know how to prevent damage to your belongings, how to maximize the storage space when packing your car, and how to make the car trip safe, comfortable, and pleasant for all car passengers.

The best way to pack a car for a move, with efficiency and safety in mind, is explained below in detail with the help of easy-to-follow tips for packing a car when moving.

What to do before packing your car for a move

Before you start packing your personal vehicle for a move, you’ll need to make sure you’re actually ready for the packing task at hand. These pre-packing steps are important so you’re not recommended to skip them and start filling up the storage space in your car without having a good packing plan first.

STOP buying new stuff prior to the move

Once you’ve made the decision to pack and move some of your possessions in your own vehicle, you should stop buying any new things that you’ll need to later fit into the awfully limited storage space of your car. In other words, you’ll need to become very conscious of what items you acquire shortly before it’s time to move out.

Instead of getting new things that’ll probably need to be transported as well, focus on sorting out the things you have right now (see below) and getting rid of anything that you don’t really need. In most cases, you won’t be able to fit everything in the car, so you’d better be ready to make certain compromises.

And while you won’t likely rush to buy new furniture just before you move away, you may keep purchasing more food items than you can possibly consume before the start of the car trip. Packing perishable food in the car is not a good idea (unless it’s the perishables you plan to eat during the trip itself), while filling up your vehicle with loads and loads of non-perishables such as canned goods is, simply put, a bad idea.

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SORT out the things you’re packing in the car

Above all else, you’ll need to sort out the things you plan to pack in the car and see if there are any items that you’d better leave behind. That sorting task is more important than you think simply because it’ll keep you from making a couple of unpleasant mistakes: 1) packing things you won’t really need after the move, and 2) packing items that you shouldn’t due to their hazardous nature.

You should sort out your items and set aside the ones you’re moving in your car during the home inventory process. First of all, get rid of all unwanted things that will only eat up the storage space in your car. And secondly, dispose properly of any dangerous items (anything that is corrosive, explosive, or flammable) – hazardous goods that you are not allowed to pack and transport anyway.

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TIDY UP and clean the interior of your car

One great way to pack more in your car is to remove any items from inside it that don’t really need to be in there during the cross-country move. You may like to keep your vehicle all tidied up and clean, ready for loading, but you may happen to also have tons of surplus stuff inside that will only limit further the storage space of your personal vehicle.

So, make a thorough inspection of the things inside your car and decide on the spot whether they should stay there or not. Pay special attention to the trunk where you’ll keep most of the packed items anyway. Remember that the more space you free up prior to packing, the more things you’ll be able to fit inside the car – exactly what you’re hoping to do, right?

Also, use a vacuum cleaner (a portable one works fine too) to clean up the car seats and the spaces around them. This way, you’ll contribute to a more pleasant and enjoyable car trip until you reach your final destination.

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CONSIDER buying an overhead carrier for the car

If your car is relatively small and you know that it just won’t be able to fit all the things you want to take with you, then you may think about adding more storage space to it by purchasing an overhead carrier for your car.

High-quality overhead carriers can be rather expensive and the last thing you’d need during an already costly house move is to spend money on something that you may not come to need after all.

And while that may be true, think of the extra expense as an investment because that’s exactly what it is – the overhead carrier will serve you long after the move is over. What’s more, your inability to fit all the items you’ve moving can prove to be the costlier option in the end.

Do a little research on overhead carriers for automobiles and see if you can find one that you can afford. Go for a hard-case model that is lockable and will offer great protection for your fragile and valuable items during the long-distance car trip.

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How to properly pack your car when moving

Now that know exactly what you’ll pack in your car, have cleaned the interior of your vehicle, and have maybe bought an overhead carrier to maximize the storage space, you are ready to learn the best way to pack a car for a move.

RESTRICT the usage of cardboard boxes

Cardboard boxes are the standard when it comes to packing things for a move – they are affordable, ever-present and very versatile.

Cardboard containers can often be found for free as well – the good news when you’re moving on a budget and looking desperately for good ways to cut moving costs.

However, using cardboard boxes is not the best way to pack more things in your car when moving. Why? While packing boxes are ideal for large storage spaces (the back of a moving truck, of course) because they are easily stackable, they are not flexible enough to get into tight spaces such as the trunk and inside of a small car.

Whenever possible, avoid packing large cardboard boxes inside your vehicle because that will eat up most of your available storage space. You can still fit small cardboard boxes in your car as long as you arrange those containers in a space-saving manner.

Copy paper boxes (approx. measuring 15″ x 12″ x 10″) are known to be suitable to be packed inside a car.

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USE plastic bags for soft items

When packing a car for moving, you should be well aware of what works and what doesn’t. You just learned that packing your vehicle with large and medium-sized cardboard boxes is not the best approach as they will take too much space which you don’t really have in the first place.

So, what types of containers are ideal for packing a car when moving to another home?

The answer may surprise you: plastic bags.

The good thing about using plastic bags to pack most of your things into your car is that those bags are very flexible and will fit inside or around the majority of storage spaces. When some of the plastic bags are filled with soft non-breakable items, then you can practically squeeze them in anywhere, creating soft cushions that will protect other things as well.

For best results, you should use shopping bags made of durable plastic – especially when you plan to pack heavier items inside them. Also, you can definitely use strong and clean garbage bags.

Thus said, you’re not recommended to use the cheapest and thinnest trash bags you can find because they can tear too easily and may lead to untimely damage to your possessions. Feel free to use vacuum bags if you plan to pack extra voluminous items for the car trip ahead.

The usage of sports bags and suitcases is also highly recommended when packing a car for moving.

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PACK UP your essentials first

Start packing your car by first loading up the most essential things you own – like the essentials boxes, for example. In other words, you should pack your items in order of value and importance, starting from the ones that you cannot possibly leave behind.

The major reason for packing your car with essentials first is that, in case you don’t manage to fit all your stuff in the personal vehicle, you’ll still have your prized possessions loaded, arranged, and ready to be transported.

What you wouldn’t want to do is have to remove any non-essential items only to create additional space for the more valuable things you’re moving. Think of all the time and energy you’d lose if you were forced to repeat the entire car packing process again.

An unexpected bonus of packing your car with your most essential things first is that you’ll be much more willing to unpack the entire car after you reach the new address. Ultimately, that’s the better option than just grabbing a few important items from the top row and leaving the other stuff inside the vehicle, to be unpacked at a later time.

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BE extra cautious when packing breakable items

If you wish to move extra-breakable items in your car, then you’ll need to take a few extra steps to protect those breakables from getting broken during transit.

The usual way to protect fragile items is to wrap them well in bubble wrap or furniture blankets, thus creating protective bundles that will keep the things inside from harm. Mind you, that’s the usual packing technique when moving delicate items in cardboard boxes.

But since you’re likely to take a certain amount of clothes, towels and even blankets in the car with you, you should use such soft goods to wrap the breakables and keep them protected on the road.

That packing trick will help you achieve two goals at the same time:

1. fully utilize the space in your personal vehicle by using some of the existing items you’re moving to protect other items you’re taking with you instead of using extra packing supplies, and
2. reduce potential packing costs by using worthy alternatives to bubble wrap and furniture blankets.

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MAXIMIZE space when packing your car

You’ll soon learn that the most important aspect of packing a car for a move is to maximize the space inside the vehicle so that you manage to fit more things inside. Nevertheless, you shouldn’t compromise safety (see below) in your strong desire to cram more and more stuff inside the vehicle.

The good news is that a car has more available storage space than it appears to have, and as long as you know where to look, you’ll be able to fit much more items than you thought you could. Once your car trunk is filled up to its maximum capacity, here are a few unusual places where you can put more stuff:

• the storage areas under the front seats;
• the space around and maybe even inside the spare tire in the trunk;
• the foot well by the passenger seat. Do not pack anything in the foot well of the driver’s seat.

If possible at all, consider lowering the back seats inside the car, thus creating much more packing and storage room for anything you’re moving with you. Of course, that option is only viable when nobody’s sitting in the back seats.

Feel free to pack stuff in any other hidden places in your car as long as that action does not pose any risks for a road accident or for the people riding in the car.

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OBSERVE safety rules when packing a car

The above-mentioned ways to pack more in your car will enable you to maximize the space in your vehicle when moving to another house. Those tips and tricks can be very useful simply because more packing room will let you pack everything you wish to take with you, thus eliminating a couple of very unpleasant scenarios:

1. having to make multiple car trips to transport everything (often an impossible scenario), or
2. having to leave behind some of the items due to insufficient storage space.

However, cramming too many items inside the car should never come at the expense of safety – the safety of the driver, passengers, including pets, and your valuable possessions.

Here are a few car-packing scenarios that may endanger the whole relocation operation:

• Driver’s foot well. NEVER place anything in the driver’s foot well because such items can easily get in the driver’s way and result in him or her losing control of the vehicle. It’s more dangerous than you think, so just don’t do it. Remember that SAFETY comes first.
• Car’s windows. Do NOT block the driver’s view by placing stuff at the back of the car in a way that those packed items cover the back window. Keep the side windows clear of any packed stuff too. During the cross-country car trip, the car driver should have perfect visibility of what’s occurring behind and around the vehicle at all times.
• Car balance. Make an effort to keep your car balanced when packing it for the road ahead. The load should be more or less evenly distributed, pay attention to the major loading axis: right side vs. left side. Keeping your car well-balanced will make the car trip safer and more fuel-efficient.

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